Committed to Mental Health, Mindfulness, Gratitude, and Positivity

I have struggled with mental health for years. Depression is the shadow that haunts me the most. I am sure I’m not fully aware of how long I struggled with it, but I can look back and recognize behaviors that might be attributed to depression. I still have to wonder, though, which came first, drinking or the depression. I have always been open about my mental health issues. I don’t share every thought that pops into my head, but I share the struggles that I believe are obvious to those who know me well and occasionally I will share some of the darker moments. I do this because I think it is important for men to see it is something we struggle with and it is OK to ask for help. I share because I know that for many men, it feels weak to share their struggles. They feel compelled to hide their emotional issues… to bury them. I also hope that helps all who read my thoughts and struggle, not just men. Everyone.

I never pursued treating mental health with any effort. I put in a below minimum effort to change my lifestyle and thinking. I was aware that depression had gripped my mind and directed most of my reactions to the world around me. I noticed the times I would be reclusive and the times that I believed I was happier drunk or high and sleeping all hours that weren’t occupied by work or feeding one addiction or another. I knew I was always a more emotionally open person. I was that kid, but that kid changed as he grew older. The sweet little boy began to hide his feelings because other boys didn’t want to talk about such things and it was clear that I was being “a girl” by talking about how I felt. There were exceptions, of course. Those closest to me would share one on one. Still, we all hid much of our true feelings in favor of showing what we believed was strength. This would lead to anger and violence in the form of fights, often when drunk, but alcohol or drugs weren’t required to shorten our fuses.

I believe it was 2001 or 2002 when I took a long tumble into the shadowy depths of depression. I found myself wanting to give up. I would consider how I could best shorten my time in this world. They were fleeting thoughts, so I chose to see them as little more than frustration and nothing to be concerned with. I chose to ignore that depression was a family trait. I buried those thoughts or drowned them in alcohol and nights sitting at bars with other emotionally damaged individuals. There were those who were not suffering such issues, of course, and I tried to gravitate more towards them. I wanted to understand how they handled their sadness. I didn’t understand that sadness does not equal depression. The people who filled most of my free time had big personalities. They were loud, fun, and best of all liked the same substances that I liked. Then I had a night where I crashed.

I went to Kroger’s to get groceries. When I returned home, I realized that I had purchased 20 frozen dinners because they were 10 for $10. The only other items I purchased were dog treats and dog food for my cockapoo, Boomer. I was feeling lethargic. I tried to get into one of my video games, I forget which, but it wasn’t distracting from a feeling of despair. I felt overwhelmed with sadness. I wasn’t happy with my life, but I couldn’t pin point what about it made me unhappy. I kept telling myself to just get over it. That is what my friends would tell me when I tried to share these thoughts… I just needed to be positive and stop feeling sad. They appeared to have that figured out because they never spoke to me about feeling like I did. They advised that they would “power through it”. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though. I had a prescription for sleeping pills. A tiny thought bubbled up and began to boil.

I’m not sure why, but I ate more than half the frozen dinners I had purchased earlier. I was watching movies I had watched over 30 times already. Each time I finished a dinner, I felt that I wasn’t full enough and would nuke another. Even after several had been consumed and I felt stuffed, I felt compelled to eat more. I waited for maybe 20 minutes or so and binged on several more. I never counted how many exactly. The more I ate, the more I thought of ways I could die. I could cut my wrists. That seemed to be the easiest answer. I didn’t want to hang myself, but I figured once the initial pain of cutting my own flesh subsided, that I would grow drowsy from blood loss and slip into the great void. It was the thought of my mother finding me that put that out of my mind. I assumed it would be her to find me because I didn’t think anyone else would care enough to check. I didn’t want her to find me and see all the blood. It was then I thought of the sleeping pills again and without hesitation, I took what was in the bottle. I would guess that it was more than 15 pills, but definitely not a full bottle as I had them for a week plus a day or so by that time. I swallowed them down and went to bed.

I believe I would be dead if it weren’t for my dog. When my eye lids grew too heavy to keep them open, I would hear scratching and barking at the bedroom door. I would yell at the door for the dog to shut up. I could hear his nails click on the hardwood as he trotted back into the living room. My eyes would close and again, the dog would be at the door. I want to say it was the fourth time this happened that he didn’t just trot away. He wouldn’t stop. It was not his normal behavior. He kept barking, scratching at the door, and sometimes it sounded as if he flung himself at the door. I had enough. I was getting mad. I stood up with the intent to chase him off and maybe put him in the garage. I almost lost my balance. I was woozy.

This was when a voice in my head yelled out, “What are you doing?” I understood that I was going to die if I fell asleep. I also realized that isn’t what I wanted. That thinking such thoughts was a sickness. My mind wasn’t working right. Instead of running Boomer off, I staggered out of my room and into the bathroom right next to it. I kneeled in front of the toilet and jammed a finger in my throat forcing myself to vomit. I then called my mother’s partner at the time to ask her to take me to the hospital since my mom was out of town visiting my grandmother. She said she would be there as quickly as she could. I threw on some shoes and stayed on my feet until she got there.

The nurses at the ER were surprised by my behavior. They were busy so only one nurse was there to pump my stomach. Here I was, a 30 something suicidal man helping the nurse insert a tube in my throat (I just held it steady, she did the inserting) and holding the charcoal in between pours. I was more than cooperative. They shared this with the on-call psych who came to assess me. After a brief conversation and due to input from the nurses, she decided I could go home and did not need to be committed. Looking back, I think I might have benefited had I been committed, but I also understand how I could be assessed as safe to return home. There was no doubt that I wanted to live and was not going to hurt myself or anyone else. I take a small amount of pride that I can say that was my only real attempt at ending my life. It was not, however, the last time I considered it.

Skip to 2008 and I was in worse mental shape than the night I attempted to end it all. I had withdrawn from socializing outside of being at the bars. It used to be common for everyone to come to my house after a night of drinking so that we could do some coke and party until the wee hours. When fall of 2008 was starting to put a chill in the air, I had stopped letting people in my house. It was a mess. I had Mt. Dew cans and 2 liter bottles everywhere. I no longer had Boomer, but I did still have my cat, Turkey, so I had empty cans of cat food stacked all over the kitchen and the basement was one big litter box as near as I could tell. I didn’t know because I had stopped going down there. I had a washer and dryer, but I had taken to going to the laundromat instead. The basement had issues with flooding as well. It was not a place anyone would want to be. After a night of drinking I came home and realized Turkey hadn’t come to greet me. I searched everywhere I could think before I realized I was going to have to check the basement. There I found her lying on the floor. It had recently flooded, so the floor was still damp. I called to her and she lifted her head with considerable effort and gave me a weak “meow”. My heart sank. I had thought she might be ill and was waiting for payday to take her to the vet. I went to her and she meowed again. Tears filled my eyes at the sound of it. I ran back upstairs with her in my arms and called my mom to tell her what was happening. As I sat on my filthy couch in a home that looked as if it were from an episode of hoarders, I watched Turkey gasp her last breaths. I had the phone crooked to my ear and was sobbing. My mom was trying to comfort me. Turkey died in my arms. I asked my mom if I could come stay with her for a while after I buried the cat. She agreed. The next morning I dug a hole in the back yard, put Turkey in a shoe box and buried her. I packed a bag and went to stay with my mom for a while. I didn’t return to the house until I was there to grab my bed and a few small furnishings and clothes to move in with a friend of mine. That, I believe, saved me from taking another shot at death. I also believe I would have succeeded if I had not been able to move in with my friend.

I could write as short biography here and still not include all my experiences with mental health issues. In this format, I’ll skip a lot, but will probably share some of it in later stories. Keeping that in mind, this is a short summary from moving in with my friend to when I found myself involuntarily committed. I lived for 2 more years at the house my friend had been renting and besides her, had one other roommate after she moved out. I eventually decided I could deal with having another cat and ended up with three, that later was down to two as I found a home for one when I had to move out of state. I was laid off a good job in 2010 because the HQ of the company was moved to Georgia. More on my thoughts on that later. I fumbled around for 2 years in Ohio before calling my old manager and getting hired back with the company that laid me off and moving to GA in 2012. I had a relationship that did not end well, but was the first time I felt I knew what it was to love. I fell apart. I bought a home. A friend moved down to live with me, she was my second roommate before I was laid off. I got her a job at my place of work. The company moved the HQ again after I had made a point to confirm they wouldn’t be moving it out of the county I moved to before I bought the house. This meant a commute or bus ride of an hour to 90 minutes one way every weekday. The stress of the job, some stresses in my personal life, uncertainty, and unexpected health issues led to being in darkness again. I felt it coming.

My roommate had gone back to Ohio for a visit. I was a wreck. I didn’t want to take my meds nor my insulin anymore. I did not care if I would wake up the next morning. I often hoped I didn’t. I had not made a plan to kill myself. I had no desire to do that. I knew that I would at some point. I confided to my manager. She had known me going on 12 years by that time. This was 2019. She suggested asking my doctor to help me take a temporary medical leave to get some therapy and clear my head without the stress of work. The short version of that encounter is I found myself carted off to a mental health facility against my will. I pushed back the first two days. I didn’t belong there in my mind. However, I recognized that pushing back wouldn’t get me out sooner and decided to play along. What surprised me is that when I did, I began to learn things. I began to see that getting put in that place might have been one of the best things to happen. I learned how to be mindful. I learned gratitude. I learned how to recognize things that would trigger my depression and work through it. The doctor helped me get the 30 days from work to get my head straight. After a week and half, I was released, but had to go to mandatory outpatient group therapy. It was in this environment I grew the most. I learned positivity and expanded my understanding of mindfulness. I had a long way to go. I still have a way to go before I have it down, but I expect that I won’t ever be perfect at it. I’m human after all.

Covid-19 caused me to be laid off. I think there was more to it than that. Before I was committed I had stepped on some toes at work… executive level toes. I was never a do it and shut up person. We had just got a new manager that I couldn’t bring myself to respect. I knew more than he did and the manager I had known for 13 years was pushed to a lateral “training” position. I sold my home and moved into the city and my roommate moved back to Ohio. I could walk to the office. Then it was decided we would work from home because of the virus. It wasn’t long after that I was laid off, though. They said lack of work, but my co-workers were overloaded. I knew it was more personal, but they gave me severance and I qualified for unemployment. I also was able to withdraw my 401K without penalties, just pay the tax. I did just that. I had no idea how long it might take to find a job. It was only a day or so into my lay off that I realized it was actually a blessing.

My stress was gone. I felt like I could breath for the first time in years. Having the tools of mindfulness and gratitude gave me the skills to avoid falling into depression. I embraced positivity. I saw this as an opportunity instead of a failure. It wasn’t an obstacle I needed to overcome, it was a part of my life ending so a new part could begin. I have always been encouraged to write. I had always wanted to be a writer, but made excuses for not finishing anything and not pursuing that dream. Suddenly, I was out of work, but financially able to be so for at least a year if not two. Getting a new job wasn’t going to be easy. I had a lot of free time. I would write a book. I had no doubt about it. I would also find a way to write about love and positivity to a wider audience than my Facebook friends. I had seen Vocal before. It took me 6 months after the lay off to submit my first story, but after I did, I knew I found what makes me happy. Writing brings me a peace that nothing ever has. I have my moments, for sure. The city environment and having the time to write as long I like with no clock to punch has led me to better mental health. It was a blessing in disguise getting laid off. My stress is almost nil. I am able to be mindful. I express my gratitude and try my best to be a positive force in the world. I’ve learned that the more I do this, the more positivity comes back to me. I’ve learned that we get out of this life what we put out into the universe. We can choose happiness if we learn to be mindful and stay present. We can learn to recognize what we have power to change and do so while also accepting what we cannot control… what we cannot change.

I will share more and hope that some may find my stories relate to them. This story is more summary than journey, but I wanted to express this to the growing number of readers I’m seeing. I’m not perfect at this and I still stumble, but being mindful and staying in the present, not dwelling on the past and living in regret… that is what has helped me find peace. It is my hope that by sharing, it will help some of you.